Stress testing

Software engineers would be well aware of this term and might have been through this too. But, since it was my first experience and one worth writing, so I thought to share it here. This is how it went, I cannot say "this is how it goes" because I think different companies have different ways of stress testing and there actually might be better ones than what we did.

We were a team of 15 to start with. Each member in the team was provided with simplest, extremely monotonous, moronic, robotic tasks - to click on certain modules for producing results and then measure time till the results were out. Then repeat this around 150 times with different permutations and combinations. If you think we could have skipped some of them, we could not. We were asked to record time consumption from start of task to result output. No, not by looking at out watch and noting it on some notebook. But, by first installing a stopwatch on our systems and then noting down time for each of those tasks in an excel sheet with predefined rows and columns for each task and user. Since this was not enough it was informed that each task must start at same time by all team members. That would happen only when the team lead says to do so. So at 10 am when every one took their seats to become Google pigeons, confusions arose from which task to pickup first to how to report the time observed in the sheet. At last when things started this is how they continued : Team lead would say "1 2 3 start", and we would start running. Yes, running! Running, our fingers on the mouse, on keyboard - to click here and there on the product, start/stop watch, note down time consumed for producing results varying from 1.5 seconds to 15 minutes and more. Then wait till all 15 are finished with that task and move on to the next one that would be informed by the team lead.

I have heard how load testing is based on increasing load after every successful execution. But, we followed a different approach starting with 15 from 10 am to 5 pm. Cycle was repeated with only 10 users from there on till 9 pm and only a 5 user test was performed from 10 pm to 1 am. Well, that downfall in users was planned due to unavailability of manpower at night so our poor managers had no other choice.

So, at 1 am when I was finally free, my stress limits had been tested. How much stress do I feel upon doing such high level work for almost 15 hours with only tea/coffee or meal breaks and no more.

My stress testing seems to have passed as I am still writing.

P.S - Its not good to write about one's workplace because it reveals a lot about what we actually do and what people think we do. But, since it was an incident that was totally out of the blue for me so here it was to be.

Paternity leave

When it comes to gender equality most employers claim to be pro women and are more than eager to explain how they ensure women do not get the feeling of a lesser mortal in their organization.

Yesterday I came across the term 'paternity leave' while reading something on mint.

During evenings I am often at my elder brother's place. He had to take leave yesterday because baby was feeling too sleepy and bhabhi had to attend an important meeting. The daily routine of leaving him at day care could not be followed so bhaiya decided to go for the 'miss'. So, when I said to bhabhi "today I read about paternity leave, isn't that a great idea?" Well, to my surprise she replied - such a leave does exist and to my utter surprise she informed it's a 1 week leave!

What is the 7 day leave for? May be it is a gesture from the employer of the would be father to acknowledge that they know his wife is expecting so he should be with her during that time.

"What if companies could give one month paternity leave every year till the child is 3 years old or so?" When I muted this to bhabhi, she was very much in favor of it.

So why don't HR managers come up with something like that. One reason could be, If the father takes leave to take care of the baby allowing the wife to go on work, it does not give any fruits to husband's employer in fact it adds to the productivity of wife's organization. So this step would be considered to be one for the benefit of other organizations.

But, this could be a good tool for the companies who take this as an initiative because this would definitely make the father think many times before he decides to jump over to another company with no such arrangements. In fact in case of couples working in same industry, this could be an attractive policy to poach the other half by rewarding the first half with additional leaves because benefits would not go outside the company.

It would be like a bond for 3 years signed by the parents not for a few hundred thousand rupees but for the convenience of their child.

Does literacy matter?

It does not if it is only about reading and writing and not about the education of understanding and following.

I workout in a gym during evening which has 4 treadmills. These poor treadmills run incessantly due to a rush during peak evening hours. So that they are used judiciously, the instruction in front of the treadmill states "Please use for a maximum of 15 minutes at one time". Yesterday when I was ready for running they were all occupied. After waiting for about 2 minutes I checked how much time these health conscious individuals would take to get down. 3 of them were already above the 20-minute mark, with ladies having run for more than 25 minutes. Finally when I got one treadmill, next to it was a girl may be in her late 20's running for the last 30 minutes. She finally stopped at around 37 minutes - yes, I continued to peep into her speedometer with utter frustration and almost on the verge of asking her to get down.

This triggered the question in my mind whether literacy matters or not?

Looking at the above incident it seems being literate is not enough to make things better because though a gym incident does not impact my life or anyone else' for that matter but incidents like this where people take U-turn under a crossed U or throw garbage in front of a dustbin do reflect society's mindset.

I think literacy matters only if it educates us!

Lost but not found.

In March I had written about a lost and found case. That was when I lost my laptop and then found it in less than 12 hours. Other than that I missed my passport twice on transit airports(Johannesburg and Bangkok respectively) and in fact found it before I realized what I had done. All this in less than 1 year of time. Thanks to all the generous people of the world for returning the goods.

Well, as I expected at that time, my quota of luck was being overused so when I lost my camera last Friday, chances of finding it were less. Since there were not too many things I did with my camera on that day. I cannot imagine anything else but having dropped it from my pocket while driving back home. May be that was the price I had to pay for being lucky all the previous times.

Though there is one more thing common in previous incidents - all of them happened outside India and this one right here in Bangalore. But, there is nothing anyone could have done even if they found it rolling in the streets - I never wrote any contact number/address on the camera cover.

I had been planning to start a weekly post containing 5 pictures about Bangalore and its lifestyle. I guess I delayed it too much and now it will remain uninitiated until I buy a new one.

Kholo Kholo

Taare Zameen par might be a meaningful movie. But, I am not writing any review here, I obviously cannot write one before the release.


But the song I find most meaningful goes like this:

kholo kholo darwaze, parde karo kinare, khoonte se bandhi hai hawa, milke churayo sare.
aa jao patang le ke, apne hi rang le ke, aasman ka shamiyana aaj humein hai sajana.

kyun is kadar, hairan tun,
mausam ka hai mehmaan tun, duniya saji tere liye
khud ko zara pehchaan tun.
tun dhoop hai, cham se bikhar,
tun hai nadi oo bekhabar,
beh chal kahin, ud chal kahin,
dil khush jahan, teri to manzil hai wahi.

Basi zindagi udasi tazi, hansne ko razi garma garam sari abhi bhi hai utari.
zindagi to hai patasha, meethi meethi si hai aasha, chakh le rakh le hatheli se dhak le ise.
tujh mein agar pyaas hai, baarish ka ghar bhi paas hai.
roke tujhe koi kyun bhala, sang sang tere aakaash hai.
tun dhoop hai, cham se bikhar,
tun hai nadi oo bekhabar,
beh chal kahin, ud chal kahin
dil khush jahan, teri to manzil hai wahi.

khul gaya, aasmaan ka rasta dekho khul gaya.
mil gaya, kho gaya tha jo sitara mil gaya , mil gaya.
raushan hui sari zameen, jagmag hua sara jahan,
ho udne ko tun azaad hai,
bandhan hai koi ab kahan
tun dhoop hai, cham se bikhar
tun hai nadi oo bekhabar,
beh chal kahin, ud chal kahin
dil khush jahan, teri to manzil hai wahi.

kyun is kadar, hairan tun,
mausam ka hai mehmaan tun.

Sung by Shankar and music from Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy. You can download the song from here.